I got nuff respect for sustained contribution and commitment beyond a news cycle, for it shows when care is real. So, I was deeply humbled to hear of the Rebuild A Home project, aimed to re-establish the stability of houses, schools and communities in Antigua, Dominica, Barbuda, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.

It gave me hope that we could do more than express horror at others’ fate and offer help briefly, but ultimately far too ineffectually. Remember, just a few months ago, hurricanes Irma and Maria wreaked over three billion dollars in damage, and mangled life chances in ways only the heartbreak of individual stories can convey.

I kept hearing Rudder in my head while the project’s organisers spoke. Rudder is rallying round lovely cricket, but those lyrics are like oxygen in your lungs when you want to sing and shout and bawl about “these tiny theatres of conflict and confusion/Better known as the isles of the West Indies”. Centuries repeatedly show we can only collectively survive if we support one another, rather than be at “somebody’s mercy”, whether colonial ruler, local politician or donor agency.

The Rebuild A Home project is spearheaded by the Living Water Community’s Mercy Foundation, and its team is a range of corporate supporters, including the Global Business Leadership Forum, the Joint Chambers of Commerce, Digicel, Beacon, Shell and BP. There are international allies such as Qnary and Align Entertainment Group, which are heading international social media campaigning and fundraising. And, there’s Build Change, which has to lead construction of hurricane-resistant homes during our brief dry season.

Corporate Caribbean stepping up and in where governments don’t or can’t will be absolutely key in our precarious future. More than anything else, post-independence governments across the region have shown more failures than successes, unless pressed to do better by ordinary people, business influence or aid conditionalities.

With dire circumstances seemingly everywhere at once, from Yemen to Venezuela, the lesson to take into this initiative is that the West Indies cannot wait on aid. Instead, anyone with a connection to the Caribbean, whether through literature, music, ancestry or blessed baptism in our blue sea, has to live by the philosophy of love for our region. Then and now, we are a unique crucible in which the histories of far flung continents have been enduringly forged together. This has been our strength and our vulnerability, and up to this second we are being presented with the opportunity to choose.

You can choose to sponsor a home or make a donation to help meet a $10 million USD project goal. You can donate $1 or $100, the equivalent of one fete ticket or as much as one mas costume. Or, you can get your mas band and fete promoter to donate for every ticket or purchase, turning your disposable consumer dollars into a boundless solidarity economy.

The project’s website and fundraising platform, www.rebuildourhomes.com, reports that, among other ongoing volunteer actions, 35 containers were shipped to affected islands, a warehouse was constructed to store supplies, and vehicles were sent to help with distribution. The plan ahead is to rebuild a minimum of 200 homes and start constructing schools. From within my crease, I’m also thinking about contributing post-disaster healing methodologies developed especially for Caribbean children.

Rudder’s pen seems to say it all: “Little keys can open mighty doors”.

As always, there is more if we want to move from adaptation to mitigation, which ultimately we must. The burning of fossil fuels, CO2 increase and climate change is the number one spiraling threat to the Caribbean. Small as we are, we have to be brave enough to think and act big so that long-term transformation and not just immediate, though necessary, donation and service is our true power.

If each of us is guided by our conscience, we can find some way to help turn trauma to resilience, “now and forever”.